Thursday, November 26, 2009

Thanks....

A brief (and entirely incomplete) list of things I'm thankful for, this November 26, 2009, as I watch the Macy's Parade....:

Coffee. Have you had this stuff? It's awesome.

Gravy. Entirely underrated.

Chicken. The world's most perfect animal to eat.

Coke Zero. When they find that whatever's in it is causing brain cancer in lab rats, I'll still be drinking it. Coke Zero is the Tab of this generation. I'll be the one guy buying the junk in 2032.

The Sweetwater Brewing Company. 420 is moving quickly to the top of my favorite beers. I'm not saying it's going to supplant the fine products of Rogue or Dogfish Head....but it's a whole hell of a lot more affordable.

The fine folks at Rogue Breweries and Dogfish Head.

I'm thankful for having beer snob friends, too.

I'm thankful that there are not large, feral, ferocious apes running around North America.

Yet.

I'm thankful that said large, feral, ferocious apes have not acquired a taste for human liver.

Yet.

I am thankful that I am not Matt Lauer or Meredith Vieira. Because this morning, I do not have to sit with Al Roker this morning in Manhattan, watching giant balloons get walked down the street. Because Al Roker seems to really be into this shit.

I'm thankful that I don't have to work with Al Roker in general. He seems kinda creepy since he lost all the weight, to be honest. Grasping at any thread of happiness. Some folks are meant to be heavy (said the guy who started his list with 17 foods he's thankful for).

I'm thankful for having friends who tolerate my bullshit.

I'm thankful even more for having friends who like me because of my bullshit.

I'm thankful for my folks. They're good people. And they've put up with each other for, like, 32 years. They can't be all bad.

I'm thankful for my sister and brother-in-law, who are some of my best friends in the world.

I am thankful that I will never lose my sense of excitement if I see one of the following vehicles out in public: The Oscar Meyer Weinermobile, The General Lee, A De Lorean like the one Doc Brown used to disrupt the space time continuum, or the A-Team Van.

I am thankful for that thing where a girl puts her pony tail through the back of a baseball cap. I dig that a lot.

Scrubs, as well. I like a girl in scrubs. Which strikes some as odd. But, it's a fool that looks for logic in the chamber of the human heart. I'm thankful for both girls in scrubs, and that saying.

I'm thankful for O Brother Where Art Thou?, though the nearly ten years since it came out is bothersome.

I am thankful that I cannot understand why Carly Simon is singing that song from Working Girl while Care Bears ice skate. Surely, to know what that shit's all about is madness.

I am thankful that I live in America, where I am allowed to spread my opinions without thought of being quashed by the hegemony.

Yet.

I am thankful for the following comedians: Jimmy Norton, Patton Oswalt, Patrice Oneal, Louis C.K., Mike Birbiglia, David Cross, Tim Wilson, Ron White, Doug Stanhope, and the late George Carlin....

My friend Robbie's pumpkin roll. And while it's probably a million billion calories in one treat that pretty much disappeared in three days, it's what God eats up in heaven.

I'm thankful for working with people who make me laugh, when the job gets a little stressful.

I'm thankful that I'm not walking up and down the streets looking for work. I'd like a little more free time, but am thankful for what I have.

I am thankful that I do not fight in the UFC for a living. Because all my beliefs to the contrary, I am most likely not a badass. I would hate to have the word see me cry after Brock Lesnar beat me into bloody pudding.

Having a writing project again. I'm pleased with where it's going so far. I'm thankful for not having to look at a blank page, and walk away frustrated with not erasing enough of it.....

Regular bowels. I cannot stress how thankful I am for those enough. Twice a day (morning, and then after the drive home). It's the little things in life....

Monday, November 23, 2009

Top 50 of the decade....

Top 50 of the decade...

Played this game recently with a few people. After seeing it over at Sheila's blog, I figured I'd put mine on paper. Or computer screen, as it were.

Simply, these are my favorite movies from the year 2000 until the current day. This is a list that came largely off the top of my head, with some help from the Internet Movie Database to differentiate this decade from the last...surprising the number of movies I dig that came out in the year 1999...

There are a few things of note....I didn't put up A Serious Man, which I saw late last week. I'm still mulling that one. It's definitely high enough caliber to end up on this list, but I'm putting it into the same category (for now) as flicks like Hotel Rwanda or There Will Be Blood: I recognize that these are great flicks, each an achievement in the medium. But, I'm never going to sit down to watch those movies on my own, again. That can change (as an example, a strong performance, such as Daniel Day Lewis in There Will be Blood could bring that flick back into the fold of flicks I'll watch again and again.

Also: I'm way friggin' behind on my flicks. There are dozens of notable flicks from this year and last that I still haven't caught, owing to a work schedule that eats a lot of that thing men call spare time. Even more, there are a couple (The Road, The Fantastic Mr. Fox and the Robert Downey Sherlock Holmes flick) that I want to see.

There are countless others that nearly made the list, but will fall forever to the land of conversation....

Anyway. There may be later discussion, but, in alphabetical order, my Top 50 of 2000-2009:

(Ones that Almost Made the Cut: The Prestige, Apocalypto, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, The Bourne Ultimatum, Ghost Town, Invention of Lying, The Others, Birthday Girl, Little Miss Sunshine, 28 Days Later, Club Dread, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, the Station Agent, Gone Baby Gone, The Specials, Paranormal Activity and The Simpsons Movie)....

Sunday, November 15, 2009

2012

Maybe it's a flaw in my character (though I know I'm not alone), but the only thing you need to do to get me to see your movie is include two shots in the movie's trailer:

1.) A major landmark (be it manmade or natural) being destroyed

2.) People running the hell from it.

Seriously. If The Bridges of Madison County had featured a bridge getting demolished by a meteor, I'd have paid to see the movie. Twice.

There may be another post in me, after I've digested my thoughts mainly concerning Roland Emmerich. It should suffice to say right now that my thoughts on Emmerich took an odd turn during this movie, and I left the movie today thinking that should Roland Emmerich and I ever have occasion to hang out, I tend to think that he and I would likely have very similar sensibilities, as it concerns people in general, and very likely, similar senses of humor. I'm going to have to hammer that particular line of thought out, but there are a couple key points in the flick that made me (and no one else in the theater, that I could tell) laugh out loud.

Mainly, there's the whole bit where the final bit of dialogue, paraphrased, is along the lines of: "By the way, I'm no longer peeing in my bed..."

Should I have thrown a Spoiler Alert up there?

As an aside and bit of non-sequitur: if there were ever a movie that would have me sitting at the back of a theater, laughing my ass off Max Cady style, it would be this one.

But anyway. I dug the movie. It is everything that you would think it would be. Vapid, barely-two-dimensional characters surviving horrible disasters in manners illogical in both terms of character's logic and feasibility in general. In short, everything that you've probably ever come to love and/or hate from Roland Emmerich's flicks....

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Salute....

I want to quote a couple plethora of lines from Monday, November 9's front page of the Daily Post Athenian, which I would link to, but they're moving to (if they aren't already there) subscriber-only.

I would however like to take a minute to quote from Jeremy Belk's front page story from that November 9, 2009, edition of the Daily Post Athenian, entitled: Napping in Ditch Sends Man to Jail.

A man who fell asleep in a ditch with suspected moonshine, marijuana, a machete and a loaded rifle ending [sic] up sleeping it off in the McMinn County Justice Center.

Ricky Butler, 31....was charged Sunday by the Sheriff's Department with public intoxication, posession of schedule VI drugs and unlawful possession of a weapon after he was found lying asleep on his back in a ditch with a rifle on his chest and a jar of "white lightning" in the bib of his overalls.

Deputies Clay Moore and Charles Berrong responded to County Road 100 near the Meigs County line on a report of a man lying in a ditch with a "shotgun." The shotgun turned out to be a loaded .22 rifle, the deputies later discovered. Butler also had a black machete at his side.

According to Moore's report, when the deputies arrived they found Butlerlying partially near a driveway but off the roadway. He was on his back with the barrel sticking up in the air.

.....

According to the reports, the deputies told Butler...10 times to put his hands up....

Wen asked by Moore, Butler said he did not know where he was. ....Butler's speech was slow and slurred and he allegedly smelled of alcohol. When Butler asked how much he'd had to drink that night....he nodded his head and looked into the bib of his overalls.

When officers patted Butler down, they discovered a Mason jar of a clear liquid. The jar was only a quarter-full when seized. When asked if the liquid was moonshine, Butler allegedly replied that it was.

The report goes on to note that while Butler appeared very intoxicated, he registered .08 when administered a blood-alcohol test.

Was I the only one disappointed by that number? Jeez. Seems to me that the icing on the cake could have been the County Physician saying "This man should have been dead, by all accounts..."

But, anyway. Stay far from the moonshine, kids. I mean, I get the machete. Who DOESN'T take a machete out with them when they're drinking? But the firearms? A bit much, I think.

I wonder about where, precisely, Butler was going with his full gear in tow. That'd have been a fine sight to see, driving down Highway 30 on Saturday, the man with a rifle, a machete and a mason jar full of courage hiking toward town (the story doesn't make it clear. I wonder if he was headed toward Athens or Decatur...the county line is closer to Decatur....)

Highlighting Yet Another Difference between Big Stupid Tommy and President Barack Obama

Highlighting Yet Another Difference Between Big Stupid Tommy and President Barack Obama

Today, because I am a man, and the world is my toilet, I took a piss out in the yard. Seemed the most convenient and least time-consuming way to go about things. And trust me, with all the scent-washing rain we've had the past day or so (thanks, Ida), I needed these trees to know just whom they belonged to.

President Obama, on the other hand, could not pee out in the yard without (literally, most likely) a federal case being made out of it.

Spent the morning writing. I've got a small writing project going. It's a little goofy, and I'm pleased that I've been able to corral the goofy energy now for 33,000 words. More quickly than I'd imagined, it's reaching an endpoint. That's actually a good thing. I've got more than a handful of projects that wander to absurd wordcounts, never to find a good finish. For me to be able to start and finish a rough draft in a couple of weeks, that's a step in the right direction.

Honest moment? I'm 32, and I'm starting to get scared with the whole writing thing. Needing to make myself do a bit more, to make a little more come of it. There's a twin demon of laziness and uncertainty, and it's a daily battle to say "fuck you both..."

But, it's going good right now.

Current goal is to have this draft done by next Monday. Reasons being, the end point is relatively quick to get to (For once, I think I know where this story's supposed to go), and for two, our busy season at work is kicking into high gear. As it is, I had to come back from vacation, and knock it up into third pretty much as soon as I hit the door. Made me a crabby sumbitch, to be honest, but we'll deal....

Monday, November 09, 2009

Burn Me Deadly

Burn Me Deadly

Just want to take a second to give a shout for a buddy of mine. I'm writing without coffee in me, so I'm not particularly verbose this morning. Suffice it to say, a friend is having continued success, and this is a post simply to say I'm proud of the man.

I've known Alex Bledsoe for a decade now. He headed up a writing group I joined in college. He's a funny guy with an easy laugh. He tells a hell of a story. He's a cool dude, and he's worked hard toward these goals for years now.

It's not hard to believe that he's got ANOTHER book coming out Tuesday. Alex is a great guy who's earned his continued success. I'm proud to call him friend.

Burn Me Deadly is coming out tomorrow, and you can order it from Amazon here:

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Linkage....

Linkage....

I've been reading blogs for seven years, now. I've read a lot of fine written material, and had the good fortune to have met a fine many folks (and look forward to meeting a fine many more, sayeth this shy kid from the foothills of the Appalachians....)

Eric, over at Straight White Guy, can count himself high on the rolls of both these lists: Fine Folks, as well as Fine Writers.

This post, "Stealing...." is one of his very best. I gotta be honest. Today was not a great day...trying, and I do not feel that I rose to the challenge with the utmost in grace or fortitude. It was a day that I call "a learning experience," and one that left me feeling rather out of sorts with a lot of things in my life.

But reading that put me in a better frame of mind....as I say in the comments, I find myself wondering at how it truly is a small world, a lot of the time. I marvel at the little coincidences in life, and at whether they truly are coincidences or not. And while there's a middle-of-the-night drunken conversation to have about that particular mouth-of-the-river, I will say that Eric's post was a terrificly written way to get my mind out of the rut it had worn itself into, in both a thoughtful and philosophic way.

Sunday, November 01, 2009

Claws

Sto-Vember....

November? Sto-Vember? I greet November with a bit of a wary eye. I've spent a goodly deal of time at my store in 2009. More than I've spent in any other year. And now we enter the holiday season. Eh. It should be good. Just have to steady myself for the next few weeks. Get my head right. Because I'll be spending more than a healthy amount of time down at the salt mines. Sto-vember, indeed....

As such, I'm not doing nanowrimo this year. Considered it, for the third straight year. But, considering that toward the 12th or 14th of the month, it starts kicking into high gear in the grocery business, I find myself without a shitload of free time. I'll be writing (and have been...it's actually been a constructive fall). Just not toward nanowrimo....

As things stand now, the old vacation candle's melted down, and your old pal Tommy finds himself in the last few hours. It was a good one. Productive, some, as I managed 16,000 words produced (the biggest part of that coming in one manic, sleep deprivation produced day). Got to see friends I don't get to see often enough. I got to see Mickey Dolenz in person.

Wandered out to Nashville this past weekend. Got to see my friends Julie & Jason. Got myself a Reuben and the St. Charles Porter at Blackstone. The food and the beer were excellent...the service left a lot to be desired, which was a surprising and disappointing first. It's one thing to forget a request like, I dunno, a basket of bread. It's another to forget the bread, the ketchup we asked for, and to neglect to ask if we were interested in another beer.

Saw my first Predator game in three or four years. I've gotten back into the hockey a bit. Following isn't the easiest thing in the world, when you've got a cable system that devotes seventeen channels to all things biblical, three to high school football and throws Vs. in there up there in the nosebleed sections of channels I never surf, even in the midst of a marathon of Jimmy Football commercials....

Good seats, near center ice, maybe 15 rows up. Made even better when a co-worker of Jason's invited us down to the empty seats next to him, three rows up from the boards, right behind the goal the Predators attacked in the first and third. Just one of those things I'd forgotten, how much I enjoyed seeing the game in person. I could see how a person would derive a great deal of enjoyment from such a pursuit.

Helps, too, that the Predators won, 4-2.

Made it back to East Tennessee late this afternoon. Watched the Titans get their first win of the afternoon, though it should be noted that Maurice Jones-Drew broke out for his first big run not two minutes after I'd turned the television on.

And did a fair amount of laundry, toward the idea of returning to work wearing clean clothes.

First time for everything, I guess.

Anyway. I am going to work a little more toward putting shit up on this site. I'm nearing The Big Seven here in 12 days or so. Seven years of this blogamathing? Dayum...